War Never Changes

I’ve let anxiety into my lungs at the current moment. It has solidified into a mass of unremovable goo that burns deep. This anxiety comes from the recent news that Russia has officially started an attack on Ukraine. War is beginning to blossom into a sickly sickled flower engrossed in thorns. It gives me anxiety as it brings in a different element that I don’t wrap myself into much, nationalism. That Russia invading a neighboring country is a direct attack on my American beliefs. Knowing that we have the resources to wipe Russia off of the map, and save the Ukrainian people from a man like Vladimir Putin. But in this premeditated justification for genocide of the Russian people I have to pause and actually look at what I am feeling. This feeling is passing as patriotic, but the encompassing factor is this need to save everyone. A masculine urge to save everyone we come into contact with because they cannot save themselves. Isn’t this what we’ve seen time and time again in South American countries that the United States has destabilized? Not only the US, but male decisions have been used as a guise of a hero complex to justify war. And this war isn’t about anything but land and fear. Somehow there needs to be a war to prove that Putin has power and can take what isn’t his. Which is all the symptoms of a toxic masculine structure bent on proving oneself to others just on a wider scale. This is all important when we think about war and its never ending violent past, that all wars have been started by male fragility. A fragility that multiplies when you have the power to aid this wound. Not saying this is a justification but a solution in itself. When we figure out how to replace male fragility with male love and acceptance the issue of war and genocide will dissolve, as the leaders who have controlling the reigns will no longer feel its pull. Not a simple solution, but one hung up and left out to dry. Now we just have to see if the shirt has shrunk or if it fits.